


Blame the kids

by tucuxi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, M/M, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tucuxi/pseuds/tucuxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kakashi was being honest with himself (which wasn’t all that often as far as Iruka was concerned) it reallly wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own.  But most of the time he still blamed it on Team Seven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blame the kids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [megyal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/gifts).



> For [](http://megyal.livejournal.com/profile)[**megyal**](http://megyal.livejournal.com/), based on this comment thread.

Kakashi blamed Team Seven. If Sakura hadn’t been so perfectly book-smart, well-versed in the shinobi code, and able to describe in detail the ways in which chakra was generated and used; if Sasuke hadn’t been almost alarmingly skilled for a child born in peacetime, even an Uchiha; and above all, if Naruto hadn’t seemed as if he’d never even _heard_ of the Shinobi Code, much less learned any jutsu at all, well. Well, if the three of them hadn’t seemed like such a terribly fascinating puzzle, Kakashi would really never have been so interested in their Iruka-sensei.

It wasn’t as if Kakashi hadn’t known who Iruka-sensei was before he took on Team Seven — you would have to have been deaf not to have heard Iruka hollering at Naruto on an alarmingly regular basis. But Kakashi had pegged him as all bark and no bite, shrugged, and put him in the same “don’t think about it too hard” box as anything else related to Naruto.

And besides, Iruka was an Academy instructor who didn’t take many missions: their paths only crossed in the mission room, if at all, and Kakashi had long since given up on trying to make the chuunin behind the desk understand why his reports were sometimes longer than the prescribed number of pages, or muddy, or late. He’d just show up, drop it on the desk, and leave before anyone noticed that half the blood on the report was his own.

It wasn’t until Kakashi declared that Team Seven had passed the bell test, and started picking up D-rank missions with the kids that he had to go through all the actual steps of the mission-assignment dance again. So it was clearly their fault that Kakashi had looked up from his book one afternoon just in time to see Iruka leap out of his chair, face flushed and patience clearly fraying, and to notice that, really, Iruka didn’t look half bad like that.

“Mmm,” Kakashi had said, shutting his book and trying to remember what the argument he’d been tuning out was about. “You know, Iruka-sensei,” he tried. “Naruto might have a point.” They ended up on three weeks of muddy gardening and cat-catching D-ranks after that, but Kakashi thought that the almost comical look of surprise on Iruka’s face had pretty much been worth it.

After that, Kakashi started noticing Iruka-sensei around town: at Ichiraku’s with Naruto, at a supermarket, once in a bookstore, though Kakashi had been unable to tell which books Iruka had been considering. One morning, on his way back from a particularly exhausting A-rank, he saw into Iruka on the training grounds. That by itself might not have been a surprise, but it was barely dawn. Kakashi realized that he had always pretty much assumed that Iruka didn’t take being a shinobi quite that seriously, that he taught first and trained later. Seeing him awake and active this early — and, Kakashi had to admit, in quite good form — well, it shook up his impression of Iruka a little bit.

Kakashi started paying attention to rumor around town, and discovered that Iruka-sensei was mean, loud, demanding, and didn’t graduate kids unprepared. He learned that Iruka’s parents had both died in the kyuubi attack, which put his relationship with Naruto in a very different light. He checked the files, and saw that, yes, Iruka had really not made chuunin until 16. What Kakashi didn’t find out was anything — not _anything_ — about Iruka’s romantic life. Either the man lived like a monk, or he took discretion very seriously. Kakashi could appreciate that. In the abstract.

Kakashi almost walked into a tree one afternoon when he realized that part of the reason he couldn’t put this particular novel down was that one of the characters reminded him of Iruka, strong and attractive and with a bit of a temper. _Attractive?_ he asked himself. _Damn._

Sneaking off to watch Iruka train the next morning was probably not the best-socialized reaction to this realization. Fortunately, Kakashi had given up on being well-socialized sometime in his early childhood, so he was able to stake out a seat in a nearby tree just before Iruka arrived. Iruka moved through his training kata just as smoothly as Kakashi had remembered.

Team Seven picked up another mission from Iruka that afternoon, and Kakashi kept his cool in front of the Sandaime and his genin team mostly by not speaking to anyone at all.

It was ridiculous. Kakashi had never been so glad to have his mask, to hide the excited flush he could feel in his cheeks if Iruka waved at him, or even, once or twice, wandered over to ask after Naruto. And his habit of reading anywhere and everywhere provided a nice excuse to sit in the most improbable of places that just happened to have line of sight to Iruka’s classroom, or the mission room, or Iruka’s apartment. Someone better-socialized would perhaps have acted on this realization by talking to Iruka, rather than staring at him blankly, or nodding: Kakashi wasn’t really in a position to find out, since his tongue seemed to glue itself to the roof of his mouth when Iruka was in the room.

So, really, it was all Team Seven’s fault that he was reduced to standing here in line in the mission office with a perfectly prepared mission report, feeling more nervous than he had since he was twelve, and flirting via _paperwork_.


End file.
